How to Get More Traffic to Your Website

Sally Hayes is a business communications coach who teaches speaking and leadership skills to adults in the midst of a career change.

Find out why creating internal links on your website is a must if you want to earn ad revenue, sell products, promote your retail store, or market your consulting services.

Your website is an online front door to your business.

Do you want a bigger piece of the organic search traffic pie?

Search engines give an extra boost to Web pages that have the most recently updated or created content related to the keywords that someone is searching for. And better search-engine listings mean more visitors, more readers, more comments, and a more vibrant community. -- Susannah Gardner and Shane Birley in Blogging for Dummies

If you want to increase your website's pageviews, you must make it easy for people to find your site in the first place! More visitors equals more pageviews. And higher pageviews increase the chances that visitors will find something they like on your website and buy a product (either your own product or an affiliate product).

Here are some simple improvements you can make to your webpage in order to increase the number of people who find your site, either randomly or through deliberate keyword searches.

To increase your web traffic, find out where your current visitors are coming from. Visitor traffic can come from a number of different sources. It can come from people who use a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing to find answers to common (and not-so-common) questions. Traffic can also come in the form of a referral link from another website. A referral link is when another website adds your website’s address to their page and people then follow the link back to your site. People can also arrive at your website by entering your complete URL into their browser’s address bar. These visitors are known as "direct traffic."

When your visitors arrive, give them the option of subscribing to updates on your blog or website. RSS (really simple syndication) lets subscribers know when you’ve updated your webpage with new content. And the more often you update your page, the more often subscribers will be coming back to check out what’s new.

Another way to increase web traffic is to engage in online outreach. Find blogs, websites, and forums related to your website's main theme or niche topic. Post comments and contribute to discussion threads where your target market congregates. Posting comments that are useful to forum participants increases your web presence and credibility. The more helpful you are to others, the more likely you’ll see a steady increase in new visitor traffic. Be sure to include a link to your blog or website in your comments, but only if it is related to that website’s readership. Anything else will come across as spammy. Note: Also check the forum's rules before you add your link. Many forums ban links that are deemed too self-promotional.

Increase traffic by using social bookmarks. Bookmark your blog post or web articles and put your site in front of hundreds, or even thousands, of new readers. Bookmarking sites, such as Digg, let you share your web content quickly. If your content is particularly popular, other bookmark users can “vote up” your link so that it shows up on the front page of the bookmarking site. If your link makes it to the front page, you’ll likely see a huge increase in traffic. Bookmarking doesn’t take long if you can get into the habit of doing it whenever you post new content.

Increasing targeted traffic to your website takes time. As you try out new ways to get authentic traffic, make sure that you use ethical practices when you build links.Don’t try any funny business such as comment spamming or stuffing your pages with keywords. Search engines are constantly updating their algorithms to weed out websites that use unethical SEO techniques to drive traffic to their pages.

For more information on the importance of internal links on your website, watch the video below and then read on for more web content tips.

You must keep your visitors engaged if you want to increase your pageviews. Getting traffic to your website is an ongoing task. It takes plenty of regular updating, fresh content, and keyword optimized content to help people find your page. After all that hard work, don't you want to make sure that visitors who do reach your page hang around for a while?

If you’ve been trying to improve your organization’s online visibility, it can be frustrating to look at your stats and see that people are either bouncing off your page or not reading more than a page or two. Fortunately with a bit of effort, you can entice readers to stay on your page and get the products and services they need from the source most qualified to provide it: you and your business!

Successful websites invite visitors to keep reading. If your business provides information that can't be found anywhere else, it's critical that visitors are able to find their way around your website easily.

The first step in doing this is to fill your website with well-written, useful content, starting with your homepage. Make sure that pages are clearly labelled with logical headings such as: About Us, Our Staff, Programs and Services, and so on. Sub-pages should also be clearly labelled and keyword optimized.

Creating strong internal links keeps readers interested in your web content. The next step to reducing the chances of people leaving your page too quickly is to provide plenty of internal links directing readers to more content on your website. If your company’s goal is to provide information and products to serve a unique need, you’ve probably already got a good amount of useful content on your website to begin with. The more content you have, the easier it will be to link your pages together.

Spend some time reviewing your website's content and figure out which pages can be linked together using hyperlinks. Start by linking a few pages. As your website continues to grow, make a habit of regularly linking new pages to older content. Always make sure to unlink pages that have been deleted or moved. The last thing you want is for your visitors to get an error message when they click on one of your internal links.

Always use internal links in the right place, using the right words. Once you have mapped out the pages that can be linked together internally, there are some things you can do to make the links easier to follow.

Avoid putting links within the first 200 words of copy on a page. You want readers to be able get through most of the page before they click through to another page. Try to insert links in the bottom third of the page’s content.

Be thoughtful about the number of links you include on each page. The text will become harder to read as more colored hyperlinks are added.

Write clear anchor text for each of your internal links so that visitors understand what the next page is about. Good anchor text also makes it easier for web crawlers to properly identify and index your content. Avoid anchor text such as “Click here." Most web users know that highlighted text is usually a link.

With a little bit of planning and thoughtful consideration about the information that will be most useful to your readers, building internal links will become second nature to your content development strategy.

You can't manage what you don't measure.

— Peter Drucker

What keeps you coming back to your favorite website on a regular basis?

The website is always updated with fresh content.

I trust the website as an authority on its niche topic.

I am interested in learning about new products and services being offered on the website.

The website is easy to read and information is always laid out in an organized, easy to follow fashion.

How do you keep visitors on your website when there is so much competition online for people's time and attention? | Source

Keep adding useful content to your website. The most effective way to increase your website traffic is to give your online audience information that they want and need. Web content, links, articles, polls, and open-ended questions that get your readers thinking and regularly interacting with your site will keep your traffic growth steady and consistent over the long run. Aim to provide web content that informs, entertains, and welcomes active participation and dialogue.

It doesn’t matter how much you know about using social media or building links, if your content is boring and repetitive, you’ll come across as a spammer. Keep your website updated on a consistent basis. Invite guest posts. Create new posts in response to comments and questions from your readers. Study your web traffic stats and find out how people are ending up on your page and how they are finding their way through your pages.

Whatever topic you chose for your blog, make it unique and original. There are millions of blogs out there, with more new blogs added each and every day. If you want to have a successful website and blog, make sure that you are writing about things that are meaningful and relevant and help shape the world in positive ways. Negativity, trolling, mudslinging, gossip, or trash talk about your competitors may get a temporary boost in traffic for you and your site, but who wants to build their online presence by bringing other people down?

Is all this extra tweaking effort worth it? Yes, if you want to make money online, that is! It's as simple as this: increasing website traffic will help your business grow.Many people who blog for a living make money through ad revenue or affiliate sales on sites such as Amazon or Ebay. They may also sell e-books and other products directly from their own site. A steady supply of new traffic is crucial if you want to make money as a blogger or website owner. Try out a few, or all, of these different strategies. Remember to monitor your stats as you test each technique and keep doing what works best for you.

Make sure your website provides useful information for visitors. A well-designed website is an essential component of a successful business plan. | Source